About classes and OOP in Python
Michele Simionato
michele.simionato at gmail.com
Tue Apr 11 04:56:59 EDT 2006
Roy Smith wrote:
<snip>
> That being said, you can indeed have private data in Python. Just prefix
> your variable names with two underscores (i.e. __foo), and they effectively
> become private. Yes, you can bypass this if you really want to, but then
> again, you can bypass private in C++ too.
Wrong, _foo is a *private* name (in the sense "don't touch me!"), __foo
on the contrary is a *protected* name ("touch me, touch me, don't worry
I am protected against inheritance!").
This is a common misconception, I made the error myself in the past.
Michele Simionato
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